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The Decline of Feudalism

Political Changes

By the beginning of the late Middle Ages, western Europe had been divided into feudalholdings of various sizes. Kings atop feudal hierarchies did not exercise a strong centralauthority and nations existed as cultural groups, not political entities. By theend of thelate Middle Ages, strong central authority controlled England, Spain, Portugal,and France.Political power in those areas had been wrested away from the local feudal lords.

William the Conqueror established the first of the strong European monarchies afterwinning the throne of England in 1066. Following his victory at Hastings and five moreyears of fighting to break remaining resistance, he began taking steps to consolidate hispower. He kept one-sixth of England as royal land. Half of the rest was given asfiefs toNorman barons who were his direct vassals. He gave one-quarter of the land to th

e Churchand the remainder was divided among the Anglo-Saxons. The entire feudal hierarchy wasforced to swear fealty to him as liege lord. He claimed ownership of all castles,prohibited wars between lords, and made royal coinage the only legal money. These wereimportant first steps in the decline of feudalism, although they could not always beenforced, especially by later kings of lesser ability than William.

In the twelfth century, England's King Henry II created the chancery and exchequer, the

beginnings of a civil service. The chancery kept records of laws and royal transactions;the exchequer was the treasury. Both offices were not hereditary, making it easyto removeunwanted officials. The staffs of the new civil service were paid a salary rather thangiven a fief, making them dependent only on the king.

In 1215 the unpopular King John of England was forced to sign the Magna Carta, afeudaldocument that made the king subject to the laws of the land and required that the baronshave a voice in the king's decision through a Great Council. Wording of the Magn

a Cartaled to important interpretations in later centuries, including the concept of "no taxationwithout representation." When a later English king ignored the Magna Carta, thebaronsseized power in 1264 and ruled temporarily through an expanded Great Council called theParliament. The new Parliament included not only the barons and high-ranking churchmen butalso representatives from the large towns.

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Although this parliamentary government was short-lived (15 months), Parliament itself couldnot be suppressed or ignored. From this period on, only Parliament could repeallaws ithad passed. No taxes could be imposed without its approval. When kings needed money in theshort term (during the Hundred Years War, for example) they were often forced byParliamentto concede more power in exchange. Parliament and the civil service continued togrow inimportance, and they proved capable of running the country, regardless of the current king'sability or any temporary rebellion by the nobility.

While the king, civil service, and Parliament were pushing down on the power ofbarons fromabove, pressure was also rising from the bottom of the feudal hierarchy. Severalfactorsworked toward freeing the serfs from their contracts with the lords, including increasingtown populations, cessation of barbarian raids, and a fearful plague that struckEurope inthe fourteenth century.

The Black Death

The plague that became known as the Black Death struck Europe suddenly and withdevastatingeffect in the middle fourteenth century. It moved west from Central Asia, appearing in theBlack Sea area in 1346. It spread southwest into the Mediterranean and then up and aroundthe North Atlantic Coast and into the Baltic. By 1348 it was in Spain and Portugal, by 1349in England and Ireland, by 1351 in Sweden, and by 1353 in the Baltic States andRussia.

Only remote and sparsely populated areas were spared. Between a third and a halfof thepopulation of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and India died, based on modernestimates of the loss.

The Black Plague was probably a variety of the bubonic plague, a bacterial infection stillencountered today and still dangerous. The bacteria were carried in the saliva of fleasthat had sucked the blood of infected rats. The fleas jumped to human hosts wheninfectedrats died and the bacteria spread rapidly in the human blood stream. The plague

took itsname from its most hideous symptom-large black and painful swellings that oozedblood andpus. Victims developed a high fever and became delirious. Most died within 48 hours, but asmall minority were able to fight off the infection and survive.

Entire towns were depopulated and the social relation between serf and lord fellapart.People who could farm or make things were valuable. The move to cities accelerat

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ed oncethe plague had passed.